Marietta Daily Journal

‘We have no reason not to allow illegals to attend’
by Jon Gillooly
jgillooly@mdjonline.co
July 14, 2010

ATLANTA – Chancellor Erroll Davis of the University System of Georgia said in an interview Tuesday that election-year politics is a factor in the controversy over illegal immigrants in the state’s colleges.

“We have no reason not to allow illegals to attend, any more than the grocer has a reason not to sell them groceries, any more than they have a reason not to eat subsidized food, any more than a reason that they don’t drive on subsidized highways,” Davis said.

“We’re not the Immigration and Naturalization Service. We offer products for sale like many other entities in society, and we want to make sure people are paying the appropriate price for those. If people are not residents, then they pay non-resident tuition. … We have enough to do without becoming the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Unfortunately, during an election year we’ve become an easy target,” Davis said.

Davis’ comments came after the second meeting of the special residency verification committee, held on the Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta, during which members were again assured that out-of-state tuition does cover the full cost of a student’s education. The committee was created after it was learned that Kennesaw State student Jessica Colotl is an illegal immigrant who has been paying in-state tuition since 2006.

But Davis said the tuition cost isn’t the real issue, either, at least not for the system’s premier school, the University of Georgia.

“The issue is, there are a growing number of kids who can’t get in UGA and some other schools, and ‘Geez, is someone there who shouldn’t be there that’s taking my seat?’ If you look at the number of truly qualified applicants that UGA turned down, it is in fact larger than our entire Hispanic population in our system. That’s the interesting number. And as you heard from Georgia State, this is not a Hispanic issue. Out of their 19 undocumented students, two were Hispanic. So the issue to us is getting it right,” Davis said.

And Davis reiterated that Hispanics only make up 4.2 percent of the population in Georgia’s universities.

“That’s it. And the large majority of those, of course, are certainly U.S. or Georgia citizens or are on legal visas. It’s not for me to speculate why people would like to use minority groups in elections,” Davis said.

Regent James R. Jolly, chairman of the special committee created by the Board of Regents, agreed that the issue is more about politics.

“It’s a very political time and there are lot of people running for office and there’s just a lot of misunderstanding, I think, about what the law is,” said Jolly.

“I think that post election time we’ll hear a whole lot less.”

Jolly, who heads J&J Industries, Inc. in Dalton, said federal law does not preclude illegal immigrants from attending a Georgia university, but it does preclude them from receiving a public benefit.

The deeply discounted, in-state tuition is a public benefit, Jolly said, but mere admittance to a public university is not.

Davis said the committee will receive another report at its August meeting, similar to Tuesday’s meeting, “other than that hopefully we’ll have some data on the number of undocumented students.”

The committee expects to make a final report, with any policy recommendations, in October or November, he said.

Kimberly Ballard-Washington, the Regents’ assistant vice chancellor for legal affairs, said Georgia’s university presidents were given 60 days from June 11 to report any undocumented students who were incorrectly categorized for tuition purposes, so that the matter may be corrected.

Based on preliminary numbers, Ballard-Washington said she is confident that fewer than 100 students in the entire 310,000-student University System of Georgia are illegal immigrants.

Jolly said that figure “tells me that it’s not really a quote problem.”

“I don’t like to get too political, but as I say, this is a hot-button issue. It’s a very emotional issue. It’s a very easy issue for politicians to jump up and talk about and say ‘here’s where we stand, we shouldn’t do this, da da da da,'” Jolly said.

Davis said Tuesday was the first time he had heard the 100-student figure.

“I’m sure there are those who will say that if there is one undocumented student in our entire system there is a problem, but from a cost-benefits perspective in terms of what procedures we should change or what additional safeguards we should put in – everything has a cost,” Davis said.

Davis also pointed to the Regents policy that took effect July 1, 2007 regarding tuition charged to nonresidents.

“There are processes, processes that are subject to audit on an ongoing basis, and there is a high degree of diligence around this issue, and there has been, and as far back as 2006,” Davis said. “I have made it clear to the presidents that nonresidents should be paying out-of-state tuition and that no waivers are to be granted for in-state tuition for undocumented students. That guidance is four years old, outside of the election season.”

Four of the candidates for Georgia attorney general – Republicans Sam Olens and Max Wood and Democrats Rob Teilhet and Preston Smith – have said illegal immigrants should not be attending a public Georgia university at all, regardless of cost. And last month 15 state senators, among them Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers, whose district includes part of north Cobb; Judson Hill of east Cobb; and John Wiles of Kennesaw issued a letter to the Board of Regents, urging the body to do more to get illegal immigrants out of state-subsidized universities.

In their letter they said, “We remain disappointed and perplexed that the Board of Regents seems to be engaged in verbal gymnastics … to escape the obvious and full application of law. Persons not lawfully present in the United States are not eligible, regardless of tuition rates, to attend taxpayer supported colleges and universities in Georgia.”

The senators also wrote that out-of-state tuition rates do not cover the full cost to educate a student.

Yet during Tuesday’s meeting, Regents staff made a presentation that indicated out-of-state tuition does cover the full cost of educating the student.

Among those in attendance at the meeting was anti-illegal immigration activist D.A. King of Marietta, who was less than pleased by what he saw.

“Problem A is the Board of Regents’ attitude toward these public benefits, and the question is, why is the Board of Regents jumping through all of these hoops and why are they so determined to allow illegal aliens into our university system?” King asked.

“Illegals are ineligible to work upon graduation, they are deportable at any time, and it was made very clear today that we have a finite amount of classroom seats,” King said. “Georgians should be calling the Regents and asking them why are they doing this? What is their reason?”

Read more: The Marietta Daily Journal – We have no reason not to allow illegals to attend